snow day

A record fall of December white, called by the locals the Snowpocalypse. Holiday break, we have learned, has had an early start: no school now until January.

Today we took the Metro to the Air and Space Museum. Both kids wanted to ride the flight simulators; both hoped to glimpse Miss Alexis, a former teacher of theirs who works at the museum. The entrance we use for the Friendship Heights station requires deep elevator descent. The doors opened to reveal a station trimmed with tinsel and hung with Disney Christmas posters. The station manager gave K. and A. a small bag filled with cookies, a candy cane, and hot chocolate mix. "Can Jews take them?" I asked. She smiled (she had heard that one before) and said "I make these gifts for everyone."

So we spent the day throwing snowballs on the Mall, wandering a museum filled with jets and spaceships and the detritus of war, watching a planetarium show about black holes and the engulfment of space into time. The snow gave a day we will keep for all time.